Tech Support
by ZePuKa
Summary: When Jimmy's brand new super computer starts showing signs of a faulty motherboard, he must resort to calling the dreaded... TECH SUPPORT! Will he be able to convince the drool monkeys on the other end of the line that he's already diagnosed the problem, or will he be reduced to a drool monkey himself with their endless hours of scripts and department transfers? 1Shot. Slight JxC.


**Disclaimer**: _I do not own Jimmy Neutron... If I did, I'd have all sorts of cool inventions to play with; like a hypno-beam to get more Jimmy Neutron episodes made and back on the air!_

**Tech Support**

"Hey, Jimmy! Whatcha doin'!?" Sheen asked with his usual over-enthusiastic tone.

The brown-haired genius didn't answer as his two best friends entered the lab, which may have had something to do with the fact that he was staring at his wall-sized monitor, drooling over what the pixels displayed.

"Hey look, Carl! Jimmy's de-smartified himself again! Let's get a cup full of his drool and fling it at some girls!"

"Uh, Sheen, I don't think that's sanitary... and I think I'm allergic to cup fulls of spit..." Carl protested, fidgeting his glasses nervously at the suggestion.

Breaking away from the monitor as he heard the noise of Sheen digging around for a cup, Jimmy spoke up, "I haven't done anything to myself, Sheen! My body's salivary glands activated naturally as my brain interpreted the input from my eyes as technological lust."

"Say whoody-whah? Your sad and hairy bands asked you to marry them but your ice cream tangoed with us!?" Sheen asked rhetorically in all manner of ridiculousness.

"No, Sheen, my... oh, never mind... I was just feeling like Carl does when he sees a llama, or like you do when you see some highly exclusive Ultra Lord doll."

"Hey! They're ACTION FIGURES!"

"Whatever."

"You were looking at llamas, Jimmy? Can I look too? Not that I didn't just come here after 5 hours of browsing llamas on Google image search or anything..." Carl asked timidly, as if it was a crime to stare at ones computer screen analyzing the details of other people's llamas. But in his case, in light of his obsession, it probably was at least very unhealthy... and disturbing.

"No, Carl. I'm looking at the Polaris ght-9000!" Jimmy responded matter-of-factly.

Disappointment written across his face, Carl clarified, "...and that's not a llama?"

"It's a highly advanced, top-of-the-line computing system. It's got a 16-core, 7.32 gigahertz main processor with four other specialized-purpose processors for graphics, sound, networking, and data access. It also has 64 gigs of RAM, and comes with a solid state hard drive that can store a googolbyte of data! That's more than a billion trillion terabytes! With all that power, it's no wonder it's plasma-cooled!"

"Uh, Jimmy... you're drooling again." Sheen pointed out, interrupting the genius' rant.

"Oh, sorry." Jimmy apologized, wiping his mouth with the sleeve of his lab coat. "Point is, I've GOT to have it! With that kind of computing power, I can increase my productivity exponentially! Now I just need to figure out where to put it..."

"Can't you just put it next to your other computer?" Carl asked naively.

"No, Carl, this computer is a whopping ten feet cubed! Don your hard helmets, boys, we've got some construction to do!"

* * *

"So... Mom and Dad, I hope you know how very much I love you..." Jimmy nonchalantly addressed his parental units a week later.

"James Issac Neutron, what did you demolish THIS time?" The maternal parental unit demanded, seeing through the sugar-coating with her x-ray vision - or at least, that's what Jimmy assumed it was, since she claimed she could also see through the back of her head.

"Nothing! I swear! I just have a simple question..."

"No."

"Okay... So glad I was about to ask, 'May I NOT have some money?'."

"Wait just a minute, mister!" Judy Neutron called as her son had turned to make a quick escape, "How much?"

"Oh, you know, not much, just enough to buy a piece of equipment for my lab..." he skirted around the issue, toeing the carpet and avoiding eye contact.

The paternal parental unit responded first with an enthusiastic, "Sure, Jim-bo! Your mother and I want to make sure you're all tip-top and free to pursue your hobby. Aren't we, Sugar-booger?"

"That depends, dear... What KIND of equipment are we talking about and how expensive is it?" she pressed.

"Well, it's just a computer..." Jimmy answered, still vague.

"Jimmy, you already HAVE a top-of-the-line computer for your lab! Not to mention your everyday-use computer in your room! Is there something wrong with those? Surely replacing parts would be more affordable than buying a new one."

"No, Mom, my lab computer is functional... but it's outdated! It just doesn't have the horsepower for the advanced computing I'd like to pursue! Computer technology evolves at a phenomenally fast rate. I could take my inventions to a whole new level with the Polaris ght-9000!"

"Well can't you upgrade your current computer for a similar effect? A new processor, additional RAM... maybe an additional hard drive?" she suggested. Sometimes, Jimmy was astounded by his mother's seemingly random displays of superior intelligence. It made sense though; he had to have gotten his phenomenal I.Q. with at least SOME help from his genetic signature, and he was 99.94825% sure there was negligible to no contribution from his father's half of the chromosomes.

"No, you don't understand! The Polaris is one of a kind and YEARS ahead of today's modern computer! No amount of parts will be able to catch an old computer up to it!"

"That certainly does sound fantastic... and expensive. Just how much does this 'Polaris ght-9000' _cost_?"

"Only a small investment, Mom..."

"You tell me the price right this minute, young man!"

"...twenty-five thousand dollars." he waited precisely fifty-nine seconds to respond.

"JAMES ISSAC NEUTRON!"

* * *

"Why don't you just use the money the government gave you for that interrogation ray you built them last month?" Carl asked innocently.

"I already funneled the funds from that into the underground construction costs to make the necessary space for the computer!" Jimmy exclaimed, "And I won't be finished the next government project for THREE WHOLE MONTHS!"

"Ow, Jimmy, my ears hurt, you're too loud!" Carl complained.

"Your llama's too loud." Sheen interjected.

"Hey, don't talk about my llama that way!"

"Carl, you don't even HAVE a llama!" Sheen pointed out.

"...Oh. Well you shouldn't say such things about ANYBODY'S llama... it's hurtful..." Carl timidly reprimanded.

Jimmy had to physically step between his quarreling friends to regain their attention. "Guys! Focus! We need a plan to raise twenty-five thousand dollars!"

"Why don't you just hurry up on the government project and get it done early!?" Sheen spazzed impatiently, apparently eager to continue his 'yo llama' battle with Carl.

"Sheen... that's one of the smartest ideas I've ever heard come out of your mouth!" Jimmy exclaimed in response before mumbling to himself the steps that would need to be taken to accomplish the task. "First, I'll need to skip a few days of school to accelerate the building process. This can be easily accomplished by alternating through the android, hologram, and Neutronic sick patch. I'll only wear the sick patch when an in person presence is required, then make sure it doesn't absorb into my skin by alternating with the android and hologram when I can get away with it. I'm sure the General would be good for the money three months early. I'll just have to budget my funds since the payout on that should be exactly twenty-five thousand and I'm likely not to get any more funds from them until they get their own budget for the next quarter approved..."

Turning to Carl, Sheen whispered, "Sometimes, I think he forgets we're here. Wanna test that hippo-thesis and loot his lab for cool toys!?"

"Sure, ok!" An enthusiastic Carl agreed, setting his eyes on a particularly cuddly-looking hamster that appeared to be taking part in a hair-growth experiment. "Oooo look, Sheen, it's so hairy!"

"Your llama's hairy."

"Hey!"

* * *

"Ladies and gentlemen! ...and _Cindy_..." Jimmy began, narrowing his eyes at the feisty blond in the audience before turning and gesturing to the curtain behind him.

"You've all been invited, either by my invitation or your own - " - Cindy rolled her eyes as he mumbled the last phrase in her direction - " - to witness the unveiling of the Polaris ght-9000! As a state-of-the-art piece of computing equipment, you are all about to be granted the rare privilege of beholding it with your own unworthy eyes."

With flair and much ado, Jimmy tipped over a domino, which subsequently tipped over one after it, which tipped the one after, and so forth, until the last domino flipped a switch that activated the shoe-tying robot to transport a bucket of water over to a scale with a half-full bucket on one side. The robot emptied his bucket into the empty bucket on the other side of the scale, which triggered further series of complex inter-working reactions that held the audience captive until the last trigger - Goddard using his helicopter ears to access and pull the curtain tassel down - which dropped the curtain and revealed a colossal metal box with all sorts of blinking lights, ports, outlets, and drives.

A collective "Oooooo" resounded from the crowd consisting of Jimmy's parents, Carl, Sheen, Libby, and Cindy. Mr. Neutron's 'Ooo' seemed to rather be the result of amazement over a rubber duck that was still circling in a kiddie pool that had triggered a toy locomotive in the elaborate unveiling chain reaction sequence, instead of over the computer.

"It's GINORMOUS!" Carl wheezed, breathless with wonder.

"Your llama's ginormous." Sheen stated simply.

"Hey, quit insulting her, Sheen!" A futile plea from Carl, since Sheen so often loved to push any buttons he discovered.

"What kind of stereo has it got!?" Libby demanded in excitement, "A system like that has GOT to have support for some cool beats!"

"Of course, Libby, no super computer would be complete without precision speakers for high quality analysis of sound waves." Jimmy responded, beaming with pride.

"And I can watch Ultra Lord on it, right!?"

"And llamas?"

"And PIE!? Can it make PIE!?"

"Hugh! Stop drooling; we have to assume our parental responsibilities and talk to Jimmy about how he acquired this!"

"People, people, one at a time!" Jimmy chastised as the questions came all at once. Despite the reprimand, he was more than pleased at the excitement. After all, the only reason he had invited them all was to gloat. Especially with Cindy. Her invitation was difficult because he had to approach the exchange in such a way that she ended up inviting herself instead of getting an explicit invitation from him.

Cindy was trying her darnedest to keep her mouth shut, for she didn't want to give Jimmy the satisfaction of knowing he had won this round. It was all she could do not to drool over such a fine piece of computing power herself, and she hadn't quite suppressed her admiration well enough to hurl insults yet. Jimmy was ruthless, however, and before she had ample time to prepare an attack, he asked her pointedly and directly. "So, Cindy, what do ya think?"

"Er, well... it's great and all that... if you need a big computer to make up for your lack of charisma." It was weak, she admitted, but it was the best she could do under the overwhelming circumstances.

"Sounds like you could use one far more than I could, Vortex."

"I'll take that as an invitation to use yours whenever I please, then." She smirked; he'd walked right into that one.

Jimmy looked mortified at her comeback, but didn't have time to throw one of his own, 'cause his mother had just convinced her husband that it was time to have a serious 'talk' with their son about how he had acquired the funds. Hence the other children were soon dismissed and Jimmy promptly grounded for not discussing things with his parents first. Something or other about him needing to 'learn a lesson in patience'.

* * *

It was therefore a week later before he had a chance to try the new computer out.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHH!"

"Hugh! Did you hear that!? Something's happened to Jimmy!" Judy cried, running out the back door and across the lawn as fast as she could. She was nearly bowled over by Jimmy as he ran out of the clubhouse, hands in the air and perpetual scream still permeating the air, magnified in decibels now that it was no longer inhibited by three feet of sound-proof laboratory walls.

"Jimmy, son, James, just calm down!" She tried to console him, but remained unsuccessful. When he at last had to stop for air, she grabbed him by the shoulders and worriedly caressed every part of his head looking for injuries. "Slow down and tell me what happened, dear." she soothed.

"Th-the Polaris ght-9000! It's not working!"

"Oh, that's nothing to get so upset about! I'm sure a genius like yourself can figure out what's wrong with it."

"But that's just it, mom! It doesn't matter if I find out what's wrong with it, I have absolutely no money to buy the necessary parts to fix it!" Jimmy whined, pushing his mother's hands away. He was bound to hear an 'I told you so', and he wanted the option of escape as soon as the inevitable came.

"Well, Jimmy, there must be some sort of warranty on it; being just a week old. The manufacturer should supply any replacement parts free of charge!"

That wasn't the response Jimmy had expected. "Mom, you're a genius! May I use the phone?"

* * *

After about twenty different menu navigations to choose to continue in English, enter his product number, indicate what he was calling for, and select if he would like to take a 'short' survey after the call, he finally heard a heavily accented non-computerized voice pick up on the other end of the line.

"Good day. My name is Mahesh and I will be happy to help you today. May I please have your name and the type of purchase you made so I can better assist you?"

"Yes, hello. My name is Jimmy Neutron and I recently purchased a Polaris ght-9000 that is malfunctioning."

"Please hold while I pull up your information."

"Alright."

It was a solid five minutes before the annoying hold music stopped and the technician picked up again. "Thank you for your patience, Mr. Neutron, please hold for just awhile longer."

Jimmy had to wonder what the heck could be taking so long when he had already filled out most relevant metadata in the preceding phone menus. Perhaps they were running a background check?

"I am so sorry for the wait, Mr. Neutron. Before we proceed, I must inform you that since your purchase was made over a week ago, the unit is no longer eligible for return. Now, what may I help you with?"

"Well you see, sir, the unit intermittently fails to respond to commands - "

"Do you see the big circle button on the front of the computer?"

"...Uh, you mean the power button?"

"Yes. Is it lit up?"

"Sir, the computer is indeed on... it has no problems turning on, it's while i'm using it - "

"Is it lit up?"

"...Yes." Jimmy responded curtly, aggravated that the man wasn't listening to him. He must be following a script or something.

* * *

"For the sixth. time. sir. I restarted the unit MULTIPLE times, but it doesn't change the behavior. I've already run all the diagnostics, made sure the drivers and software were all up to date. I even loaded it with five other operating systems to verify that the issue wasn't software related. It just has some lose connections on the motherboard in all likelihood, and needs some connectors replaced. At the worst, the motherboard on the whole will need to be replaced."

"...What color is the F11 key?"

"GRYAHHH! Do you even SPEAK ENGLISH!?"

"Yes sir, I was top ninety-five percentile for my English for each standard of my secondary education."

"Then will you PLEASE stop following your script and LISTEN to me!? I am a certified GENIUS with an I.Q. of - "

"Okay, Sir, i will patch you through to our customer service department."

"Hold on! I KNOW what's wrong with the unit, I just need to have the part replacements covered by warranty! Can't you just arrange for the parts to be sent!?"

"...Let me patch you through to our customer service department."

"No, wait!" Jimmy exclaimed, but it was too late. Every time he had gotten transferred, he always had to wait at least another ten minutes, and ended up getting passed around in circles from department to department.

* * *

A week later, Jimmy sat in his desk at school, silently seething about the past week's frequent tech support calls and the pitiful lack of I.Q. on the other end of the line during said calls. He was so indignant about their blatant disregard of his intelligence that all he could do was dwell on how insulting to his dignity it was. So draining was this task, he barely noticed Cindy's usual jabs and teasing. So after class, he was a little surprised when Cindy got right in his face.

"What gives, Neutron!? Now that you've got your super computer, you think acknowledging the rest of us is beneath you!?"

It was hard to ignore a green-eyed distraction that was half an inch away from your face, no matter how far gone you were in your thoughts plotting several different ways to get through to customer support monkeys. "What?" he asked, dazed as he was awoken from his monkey musings.

"Okay, what's cooking in that big ol' brain of yours?" Cindy pressed, ascertaining that something big must be up to have his thoughts so preoccupied.

"No new inventions, if that's what you were thinking." Jimmy responded, then muttered, "I'm too broke for that."

Looking left and right to make sure the coast was clear, Cindy leaned in a little closer and whispered, "Is everything okay then, Jimmy? You've looked so... frustrated. Something wrong at home?"

Taken aback by Cindy's sudden change in tone and the use of his first name, it took Jimmy a moment to process what she was implying and correct her. "No, it's nothing like that. It's just the new computer I bought has a bad motherboard, and I've had a heck of a time working with tech support. I think I'd rather be a block of Cesium and dropped into a pail of water."

Cindy cringed. "THAT bad?"

Leaping leptons, it felt good to be speaking to someone with a brain again. "I may graduate to Francium by the end of the week." Jimmy amended with a smile and small laugh.

* * *

"For the THOUSANDTH time, I already went through all your steps to make sure the computer is on, all devices enabled, all software is up to date, and that anti-virus software is installed and up to date - not that it would make a difference in this case. I've uninstalled and re-installed drivers, recovered the operating system, and restarted an infinite amount of times. When will you believe that this is a HARDWARE issue and isn't a software issue!? Did you even LOOK at the reports I gave you detailing the error codes in the operating system logs and the conclusive data pointing toward a motherboard failure!?" Jimmy practically screamed through the telephone receiver a few days after his exchange with Cindy. A new alkali metal needed to be discovered, 'cause he was WAY past Francium now.

He was now banging his overly-large head against his control keyboard in frustration, which was probably only going to serve to make his head even more disproportional to his body and send a few nonsensical commands to VOX. The sound of forehead flesh hitting plastic keys drowned out both the sound of the babbling technician on the other end of the line as well as three soft 'thud's after his head made contact with the "Open" key.

Jimmy was thus more than a little shocked when a hand yanked the phone out of his a minute later. Whirling around in his chair, he saw Carl and Sheen waving at him from where they were just brushing themselves off from a rough entrance. Cindy apparently had recovered faster, for she was now the one standing next to him, phone in hand.

"How'd you guys get in h-"

"ZIP IT, Neutron, I'm on the phone!" Cindy snapped. "Hi, what's your name? Mahesh? My name's Cindy Vortex."

Jimmy stared in shock as Cindy's voice did a 180 from the way she had just addressed him. She was now talking to Mahesh in a sweet, sing-song voice, and he wasn't sure which part about that infuriated him more. The fact she'd been so harsh to him a moment ago, the fact that she was being nice to the unworthy technician, or the fact that he seemed to feel a twinge of jealousy that she was talking nicely to the technician instead of him.

"Uh-huh. Okay. Thank you." Cindy continued her cordial conversation with Mahesh.

When there was a lull in the exchange, Jimmy started to prod for what was going on, but she just held up a finger to silence him. He nearly jumped a whole foot back when a moment later she burst out, "ALRIGHT, MISTER! YOU SEND OUT A REPLACEMENT MOTHERBOARD THIS INSTANT, OR YOU'LL FEEL THE WRATH OF CINDY VORTEX!"

"Whoah, Cindy's gone killer!" Carl gasped with a shudder.

"You're llama's a killer." Sheen provoked.

"STOP IT!" Carl protested.

"SHUT IT! I'M ON THE PHONE!" Cindy hissed. "Sorry about that... kids will be kids. Now you listen carefully to what I'm about to say. Sure, you can go ahead and refuse to send the replacement, but be forewarned that if you do; your company name will be slandered ALL over the world wide web! And if you TWITS are too DIMWITTED to doubt Mr. Neutron's ability to accomplish that after your hours of conversation with him thus far; then you DESERVE every bit of misfortune that will result!"

Jimmy gulped. He had no idea Cindy had such a... _sinister_... side. "Hey Carl, remind me never to get on Cindy's bad side..."

"But I thought you were already on her bad side..."

"Apparently not. ...I'm still alive."

* * *

"Hey, Vortex! Wait up!" Jimmy called as he saw her leave her pink house to head to school a few days after her tech support intercession.

"Well if it isn't Nerdtron. Did you get the computer issue all worked out?"

"Yup! ...It _pains_ me to say it, Vortex... but I couldn't have done it without... without..." Jimmy hesitated. Why was he saying this again? Oh yeah, 'cause Cindy had inadvertently complimented him while she had been advocating for him with tech support. It was painful, but he couldn't stand having an unbalanced ledger with Vortex.

"Well spit it out, Putron!"

Fearing her wrath, Jimmy hurriedly appended a quiet "...you."

"What's that? Couldn't hear you!" Cindy yelled far more loudly than was necessary; no doubt hoping to grab the attention of any passersby for his confession.

Rushing to get it over with before her calls DID attract any attention, he repeated, "ICouldn'tHaveDoneItWithoutYou, Okay!? There. I said it. And I WON'T repeat myself!"

Cindy beamed with pride and self-satisfaction. "You OWE me one now, Neutron. How about you let me use your 'ght-9000 for the upcoming science fair project, and we'll call it even?"

"Well, uh, that's not really possible..."

"Neutron! You just said you couldn't have resolved your computer predicament without me! The LEAST you could do is let me use the computer a LITTLE bit!"

"Well that's just it, Cindy... I sent it back."

"You WHAT!?"

"I returned it. They accepted a late return with a full refund."

"But... WHY!?"

"Well, when I threatened to get you back on the phone again I guess they didn't..."

"No no no, not that... Why did you decide to return it!?"

"It's a matter of principle, Vortex. They dared to _insult_ my intelligence..."

"So you selfishly got rid of your super computer because the techs refused to feed your over-bloated pride and arrogance!?"

"Well, no... there was also the matter of having funds for other inventions and such... but that was probably the primary motivation, yeah..."

"NEUTRON!"

"Wait! Cindy! Don't! Just remember, you're not an alkali metal, and I'm not water! Well, I'm 65% water, and there are trace amounts of alkali metal in your body, but not enough to cause such a violent reaction! Ahhhh!" Jimmy tried to pacify her while he ran away as fast as he could.

Too bad Cindy was the faster runner.

* * *

**Update 7/7/13:** For those who may be wanting more, I plan to incorporate this one shot, as well as my other ("My True Feelings"), into the canon of a new JN fic I'm working on called "A Household I.Q. of 782". For more info, check out my profile.


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